Matthias McRobbin wrote:Thanks again for the feedback. I'll be aiming at steel gongs so hopefully the rubber sheets should last a while, if they're just catching the strays and not every bullet (unless I'm a terrible shot!)
Is there anything you'd do differently if you were to make up the rubber sheet frames again?
I do live near Traralgon, and I see that Belle Banne Conveyors are located in Traralgon now so I'll see if they still sell old conveyor belt rubber sheets, cut to size.
The air rifle I'm looking at comes with bullet moulds, so I could cast my own bullets eventually. What have you found is the best way to melt the lead for pouring? I've seen simple pots that go on a stove, and more complex electronically controlled pots with a tap at the bottom - so many choices!
The sheet on the front of my stack had more than 30,000 bullet holes through it before I decided to replace it. Mostly .22LR, and mostly concentrated from shooting thousands of 5rd and 10rd groups on paper. The .44, .45 and 12ga. slugs punched holes through the rubber and eventually it got very floppy so I moved it to the back of the stack. The .357" bullets will tear it up more rapidly than the .22's do but I reckon you'll still get plenty of life out of it. It's still going to be subsonic isn't it? In which case I would think you'd only need three or four sheets. I would also expect you'd be shooting relatively close (not more than 100m?) so it wouldn't need to be as big as mine.
I had the rubber behind my silhouettes when I started shooting at them as I was mostly missing, now I mostly hit (except with the fifth-scale Rimfire silhouettes) so I don't bother with the rubber. When hitting steel there are usually the bullet bases that can be recovered (probably less than a quarter of the bullet weight), and they generally land on the ground relatively close to the target so I just collect up the larger ones. The rest is just powdered lead dust and fragments that you really can't recover unless you put a large steel tray under your targets. The misses bury themselves in the ground behind the target. If the impacts are obvious I'll dig them out but usually I take the metal detector up every couple months, wave it around, and dig lots of little holes.
I did start rebuilding it a couple years ago. I used 25mm square tube and screwed a rubber sheet on both sides to stand vertically. But this is really heavy to move around, about 60kg. I wanted it for practicing long-range .22LR due to the great variation in bullet drop at several hundred meters. But at 200m and further the .22LR bullets just barely push into the rubber and sometimes just bounce off, it needs to be thinner for long-range. I should look at it again but I'm pouring all my energy and time into pistol shooting this year so it won't be for a while.
Yep, I bought the sheets from Belle Banne, they cut them to length for me and lifted them onto the ute with the fork lift.
Very nice being able to cast your own slugs for an air rifle. I think you want pure lead for those, the same as muzzleloading rifles? I know a lead lighter that probably has more pure waste lead for sale (I can give you some to get you started). For smaller bullets, say under 250gn, I like the Lee bottom-pour melting pot, for heavier bullets and slugs I find a ladle gets the alloy into the big moulds faster. Lyman do a ladle with a pour spout to fit the sprue plates - it's an excellent tool. https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1010226746
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Don't do your melt on a kitchen stove as lead dust will settle on all the surfaces around the area, get a gas camp stove and do it in the yard. For starting out or doing small test batches I just use the ladle and heat it with a gas torch.
I wouldn't mind getting together with you sometime as I looked at the big-bore air rifles during the dearth of powders and primers as they seemed like a sensible option.
